


This is a love song

by redbrickrose



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alcohol as a Coping Mechanism, Background Case, Case Fic, Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Demiromantic Castiel (Supernatural), Demisexual Castiel (Supernatural), Episode: s04e14 Sex and Violence, Episode: s15e11 The Gamblers, Love Confessions, M/M, Sirens, feelings what plot, the kind of consent issues that come with the siren territory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:14:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23161531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbrickrose/pseuds/redbrickrose
Summary: Sirens are fucked up. Everyone is tired of mindfuck monsters.
Relationships: Castiel & Jack Kline & Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Comments: 24
Kudos: 139
Collections: The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	This is a love song

**Author's Note:**

> This is set before episode 15x12 airs, so it's about to be canon AU, but I had to get it out there.
> 
> I don't really deal with the Empty deal here, though it's obliquely referenced at the end. My theory on that is that it's about _sustained_ contentment over time, rather than the flash of a moment of real happiness. I feel like none of our heroes are currently in a position for sustained contentment, but we'll see where all of that goes.

Sirens are so fucked up.

That’s Dean’s main takeaway from this case. That, and just when you think it’s safe to go back in the water, that’s when you end up dashed against the rocks.

They hadn’t heard anything from or about Chuck in over a month. Billie was radio silent. It was one case, to blow the dust off. One standard, run-of-the-mill monster case to maybe feel something like _normal_ again. 

But in hindsight, what does normal even mean? It doesn’t exist right now, and Dean’s not going to pretend it does. All routine cases - vampires, ghosts, wendigos, any monsters out of Greek mythology - are going to Donna and Jody and Dean is going to examine every document and artifact in the bunker or interrogate every single angel, demon, or ancient cosmic entity until they find an answer to Chuck. And he’s not going to die trying because that’s what Chuck wants. And he’s not going to do anything that does NOT involve finding Chuck because _doing things_ gets them fucked with.

If Chuck’s going to manipulate everything they touch anyway, Dean wants it to be a straightforward fight. He’s tired of guessing at the subtext of his own life. He’s just tired.

He pours more whiskey into his glass and drops his forehead against the hotel room window with a thud. Behind him, Sam is drumming his fingers on the table and clearing his throat, like he’s gearing up to say something he thinks Dean is going to react badly to. So he probably is.

“Maybe it wasn’t Chuck,” Sam says. 

“Mmmhmm, okay.”

“Dean...he can’t control us. Maybe he can manipulate situations if he can… I don’t know. See us again. But if this was him, it still didn’t go how he wanted. Neither of us got infected. I’m assuming that was his play. I mean _if_ he had something to do with this - and we don’t know that for sure - then maybe it shows how he’s getting desperate. This wasn’t Cain and Abel here; it wasn’t satanic possession. It was just a monster.”

Yep. Just a monster that fucks with your head and makes you believe feelings that aren’t real. 

Dean scoffs, and turns around so he can actually meet Sam’s eyes. “Sammy, are you telling me you feel good about _anything_ that went down tonight?”

Sam sighs and knocks his knuckles against the table next to his laptop, screen glowing blue in the darkness of the room. “No, of course not,” he says.

“Yeah,” Dean says, and turns back to the window, though there’s nothing out there except the occasional blur of headlights cutting through the downpour. They’re in a motel in the middle of fucking nowhere, in the dark, in the desert rain, Jack and Cas in one room because Jack won’t even look at Dean, and Sam and Dean in another, left to ponder how they’re both too broken to even let a fucking siren get close. It’s probably supposed to be a metaphor for something. Shit.

Dean starts when Cas knocks on the connecting door, and then pushes it open without waiting for an answer. If it was locked, it would probably be locked from the other side. Cas is down to his shirtsleeves, and he looks tired in the lamp light, older than he should, and Dean is struck, not for the first time, by how he seems to be aging right along with them. He hasn’t been able to bring himself to ask about it. 

Seeing Cas out of layers always knocks Dean back a step, and he feels particularly unprepared tonight.

Tied to a chair and bleeding, the siren had fucking winked at him, tossing her blonde curls and looking so, so young - not really like Claire, but not _not_ like her either, and maybe that meant something too. Dean’s not sure coincidence even exists anymore. “You know why I didn’t even bother with you, right?” she hissed in a whisper, “People pining like you are? You’re no fun. It’s too much work to get close enough for the kiss. You don’t want anything but what you have, even when you’re miserable. You can’t even see anybody else.” She’d cast her eyes toward Cas and giggled. 

Then Sam drove the knife in - the knife they’d cut Jack’s arm with and covered in his blood. Dean stood there, reeling.

Cas had been across the room, distracted by a struggling Jack. Sam was right there, but hasn’t said anything. Not like that’s the only awkward thing they’re going to have to work through.

“How is he?” Sam asks, and Cas shrugs, eyeing Dean warily.

“Not talking much. Embarrassed. But he’ll be ok.” Then he clears his throat, answering the unasked question. “He didn’t sleep with her.” Dean lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding, flooded with relief. That would have been...well, he doesn’t want to think about what that would have been. 

Cas comes forward, leaning one hip against the table next to the window. “The spell broke when she died, and was weakening even before that. He was metabolizing the venom quickly; that’s why he didn’t really try to hurt me at the end.” Dean knows that’s true - Jack could have blown them all away - literally - and he didn’t. But also even at the height of it, he wasn’t ever that angry with Cas. Cas turns toward Dean and lays a hand on his arm just above the elbow. Dean jerks, but doesn’t pull away. “He’ll be fine, and you know he didn’t mean what he said, Dean.” Cas isn’t quite meeting his eyes.

“I know,” Dean lies. He knows damn well from personal experience that you absolutely mean what you say on siren venom. It’s missing context and nuance. You don’t mean it quite the way it comes out, harsh and angry, words like barbs wielded to wound, but all those feelings the siren dredges up are pulled from an honest place of vulnerability and pain. So Jack standing there with that knife, full of human anger, as though using his angel powers didn’t even occur to him, saying, “I’ll never forgive you” and “I have to do this because I’ll be safe with her” and “this is the only way I’ll ever be safe” - that came from feelings that were real.

Sirens are _so_ fucked up.

“Why did it even work?” Sam asks, either ignoring the tension or just powering through. Dean’s starting to understand how Sam’s managed a lot of the last ten years by just pretending he doesn’t notice things. “He’s all powered up, and we know siren venom doesn’t work on angels.”

Cas stiffens and drops his hand. “We do,” he says, evenly, staring at the wall, “but he’s still half human and I guess that was enough.”

“Should I talk to him?” Sam asks. “We’ve been there. I know it can feel...violating.” 

_And he didn’t really go after you_ , Dean thinks, but no one says.

Cas nods. “Yes, but. Tomorrow, I think. Let him rest.” He turns back to Dean and says, “Can I…” reaching toward the gash in Dean’s shoulder, already bandaged up by Sam and now a dull ache throbbing under the whiskey. This time Dean does pull away.

“Leave it,” he says, not meaning for it to sound harsh, but it comes out abrupt in the silence.

Cas sighs and moves away, back through the adjoining door.

“Dean…” Sam starts, once Cas is gone, but Dean just shakes his head.

“You leave it too,” he says and climbs into bed still in his jeans.

\---

Sirens are fucked up for a lot of reasons, but one of the big ones is motivation. They don’t feed. It’s not about survival. They’re cruel and they just get bored. This one clocked them as hunters and was just having _fun_.

It should have been any of the rest of them, and the siren had tried. She went after Sam as the medical examiner (because of course she did; coincidence, Dean’s ass - this case had way too many callbacks) tough and smart and sweet, with a nerdy fascination for old books and a story about a haunting she’d seen as a little girl to explain why she was open-minded and willing to roll with their weirdness. And Sam, too guilt-ridden and self-loathing after Eileen and Rowena, had shut down every advance.

She went after Cas as a witness the were interviewing - a very male, flannel-wearing theology student who knew a lot about old cars and wanted to talk all about his dysfunctional family and something called gnosticism. Dean’s still processing the fact that had apparently worked - and there is so much to unpack there he’s not sure he’ll ever get it fully sorted - but at least they’d learned that siren venom doesn’t work on angels.

Then, while they’d been busy with their suspicions about Alexis, the bartender with the Led Zep t-shirt and the killer darts game who’d been flirting with Dean for days, the siren had gotten to Jack as the bubbly coffee-slingling waitress at the diner next to the motel. They hadn’t seen it coming until Jack had texted Cas that he was “going to talk to some kids from town and see if they saw anything” and then hadn’t come back.

Fucking plot twists.

Fucking sirens.

Fucking _Chuck_.

\---

It’s a little over a seven hour drive from northern New Mexico back to the bunker. Jack spends the drive curled up against the door, looking out the window, and Cas is quiet too, casting concerned looks at Jack and periodically meeting Dean’s eyes in the rearview before looking away. Sam is in the best shape of all of them; he’s been gentle with Jack all morning, but also aggressively normal with Dean and Cas, well practiced at operating as a buffer.

Dean is way too in his head for that to work, though, and at about hour two, he turns the music up loud enough to cut out all casual conversation and let the Rolling Stones carry them through. At hour four, he can’t take the pressure-cooker vibe of the car anymore and makes the executive decision to stop for lunch. 

They end up at a diner in a town that’s little more than a wide spot in the road on the Kansas/Colorado border. The diner itself has seen better days, all cracked linoleum and creaking vinyl, but the the coffee is serviceable, they have a bacon cheeseburger, and it gives them a minute to stretch their legs and get a little distance. Dean will take it, even if Sam makes a face at the “salad” options.

After they order, Sam excuses himself to step outside, caught up in his texting conversation - with Eileen, Dean assumes, those he’s been cautious about pushing too hard with questions there. It makes Sam quiet, and introspective and _guilty_. Jack mumbles something and heads for the bathroom, so Dean and Cas are left sitting across from each other in the booth, not really making eye contact.

Dean knows why they’ve fallen into this configuration, with Cas always at Jack’s side. It’s been like that since Jack got back to the bunker, even before this misadventure. Dean gets it - Cas is fiercely protective of people he loves and everything with Jack still feels impossible and precarious. It feels petty, but part of Dean always wants Cas on his side of the table, and they had just been getting back to normal.

“How is he doing?” Dean asks, to break the silence. Only Cas has really had any time alone with Jack since everything went down.

Cas raises one shoulder in a half-shrug. “A little better this morning. He’s been through worse than this, Dean.” And that stings, though Cas probably doesn’t mean for it to.

“Yeah, I know. But sirens get in your head and twist everything around, so you don’t even know what’s real, and…” Dean trails off and gives a wry laugh, no humor in it. “The kid’s had enough of that.”

“Haven’t we all,” Cas says, one eyebrow cocked, and there’s an opening, if Dean is willing to take it.

“How are you doing?” he asks.

Cas shrugs again. “I’m fine. Worried about Jack. Worried in general. But It didn’t work on me so…” He pauses, and tilts his head, eyeing Dean speculatively, and then says, “The siren, you know, _he_ kissed _me_.”

Dean coughs and looks down at the table. “Okay,” he says. This is so, so close to the line they spend so much time straddling, and it is so, so stupid for Dean to feel like a conflicted, jealous teenager over this, in the middle of everything else. But.

Cas sighs. “I’m just saying. He was interesting. I liked talking to him. Maybe I should have known. Maybe I should have seen that he was particularly appealing to my interests, and that’s on me, but I wasn’t even thinking about kissing him. That’s not the kind of thing I usually…” He trails off, seeming frustrated. “I don’t always pick up on human romantic...signals in the moment.”

Well, that’s not news.

“He surprised me; that’s all,” Cas continues, gently - too gently for the conversation they’re having, probably. 

Dean sighs and takes a sip of his coffee, just for something to do. That answers one question he had a vested interest in, but opens up several more. Like, what, exactly, about the siren in that form appealed to Cas’ interests? Like, was Cas not particularly interested in kissing the siren, specifically, or not particularly interested in kissing at all?

These are the kinds of questions that keep Dean up at night when he’s not already being kept up at night by the end of the world. Sometimes he’s not sure which he prefers.

“Okay,” he says again. “It’s fine, Cas. It just surprised me too; we just weren’t expecting it to go after you like that. At least we learned some valuable intel about siren venom.”

Cas narrows his eyes, searching, and Dean drops his gaze so they don’t end up in a staring contest he knows he can’t win.

Sam and Jack come back to the table right before the food comes, and then they distract themselves with eating to make the awkward silence less noticeable.

\---

Sometimes the bunker feels huge and echoing. It’s possible for Sam and Dean to go days without really seeing each other, and Dean knows from experience that that’s still possible even with four people in the place. 

Sometimes the bunker feels small and claustrophobic, like he’s tripping over the others every time he enters a room, trapped underground with a bunch of uncivilized packrats who can’t even _wash a fucking dish_. (Cas doesn’t eat, but he sure does leave coffee mugs everywhere). It’s kind of reassuring though, the constant, visible, kind of annoying reminders of his family around him, even if they are still treading carefully, talking about Chuck, and whatever Jack is watching on Netflix, and not much else.

Despite the lack of leads, they’re all in agreement that Chuck has to be the priority. Sam falls back into his role of hunter coordinator, handing off any cases he identifies to the others - Jody, Donna, Bobby, Eileen. He’s even got Charlie and Garth on call if needed. They’re all working the phones, and every other day one of them is pretending to be an FBI assistant director or a department director from the CDC. They have a network, and enough friends and allies that it’s handled. Dean feels a little guilty that they’re not out there in the day-to-day, even though it was at his insistence, but when he thinks about it, he is still a little stunned at the family they’ve built. Ten years ago, he wouldn’t have thought such a thing would be possible. Ten years ago, even a home base felt like a pipe dream. It makes him even more determined not to let Chuck take it all down.

Dean just wishes he had a better idea of how the fuck to do that.

Jack is still reserved and a little too quiet after the siren case. Every day, he looks a little more dejected when there’s no new insight into the next step from Billie. 

Dean spends all his time on research until his eyes itch and blur. It’s not his favorite part of the job under the best of circumstances, and he can feel himself getting short-tempered and impatient. Cas is back and forth between the bunker and heaven and tracking down angels on Earth, but he doesn’t turn up much. He finds Anael where she’s gone to ground, working at a boutique tea and herb shop for the kind of people who wish they were witches and stealthily keeping up her healing business on the side, but she knows even less than they do. He tries to find Michael and Adam, but they’re in the wind, unlikely to be found unless they want to be. 

When Cas is in the bunker, he sits at Dean’s side looking for new leads and drinking Dean’s whiskey, even though it doesn’t do much for him. He watches Jack with cautious, worried eyes.

\---

Dean’s making pancakes, just for something to do that’s not sitting in the library reading the same book for the fourth time, when Jack finds him one morning.

They’ve talked since Jack got back, though Dean knows it’s not enough. Dean hadn’t quite been able to articulate his relief or his fear, or how his grief for both Jack and his mom had played on each other until he didn’t know how to see through any of it, how sometimes anger is the only emotion he can draw from when he’s looking for strength because everything else is so overwhelming it’s incapacitating when he can’t afford to be incapacitated. He’d settled on “I’m sorry” and hoped it conveyed any of that.

They haven’t really talked since the siren.

“Hey, kiddo,” he says, when he sees Jack standing behind him, hesitantly watching him sift the flour. “Want to help?”

“Okay,” Jack says, stepping forward to the counter, keeping just enough distance so that their shoulders don’t brush.

Dean nods to the egg carton sitting at his elbow. “Crack two into that bowl over there with a cup of milk. Then melt the butter on the counter in the microwave and add that in.”

Jack moves around him, following his instructions. When he’s got everything combined, Dean hands him the bowl with the dry ingredients and a fork, showing him how to whisk it all together. They work mostly in silence. Dean turns toward the griddle when it’s hot enough.

“Okay, you’re going to want just a fourth of a cup of the batter. Scoop it on the griddle, and we’re going to flip it when we see the bubbles start to form in the top.” Jack smiles up at him, hopefully, and then holds the spatula ready, intently watching the stove. Dean’s reminded of the easy companionship of the day they want fishing. He loves this kid, and he’s a little afraid of him, and he still doesn’t know how to balance all of that, or quite what to say.

They’re at the table with their pancakes when Jack says, “I’m sorry,” out of nowhere.

“For what?” Dean asks, cautiously, and Jack looks at him, a little disbelieving. Dean’s pretty sure he learned that expression from Cas.

“For everything. I loved Mary. So much. I miss her so much.”

Dean breathes out harshly. “Oh, kid. I know. Me too. Chuck played us all.“ He takes a breath. I’m sorry too.” He doesn’t feel like that will ever be quite enough, maybe for either of them.

“I’m sorry for what I said, too. With the siren,” Jack says, his voice getting stronger as he goes. “I didn’t mean it. I don’t believe you want to hurt me.”

He doesn’t say _I’m not afraid of you_ , but that’s okay because that probably would be a lie. They’re afraid of each other, and they’ll work through that, or they won’t, but there’s no real comfort in pretending it’s not there.

“Good,” Dean says. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. I’m so happy you’re back, Jack. I promise." He takes a deep breath. “We had a run-in with a siren once before. I know we told you that, but I don’t know if we told you much about it. I know what they can do. They make you think things, hurt the people you care about. I nearly killed Sam. And then the siren got him and we went after each other. They pull from real feelings, but I know much they twist things up.”

Jack nods, seeming to gather his thoughts, and then asks, “Were you in love with her?”

“Who?”

“Your siren. The one that got you before.”

“No,” Dean says, and he doesn’t correct the pronouns, but he’s thinking about Nick. Dean had been so fragile at the time, and Nick had been an offer of everything he wanted. _Get rid of your baggage and you can be with someone loves and trusts you unconditionally._ It’s a powerful pull. And he’d been into Nick even before he got the venom in him. Nick had given him an out with the whole brother angle, probably to keep him from fighting it too hard because his repression ran a lot deeper back then, but desire of all kinds had been part of it. “But I thought I did, or at least that I could. It’s not real, though. It’s like being hypnotized, brainwashed, and some part of you knows it even while it’s happening. You felt the shift, right? How quickly everything changes?”

“Yes, it was like suddenly she mattered more than anything. I knew it wasn’t like that before. I knew she was probably the siren, but everything she said made so much sense. I’d have done anything to make her happy. Part of me liked the way it felt.”

“Yeah, that’s...how they get ya.”

Jack is looking down at his plate, pushing a pancake around in a puddle of syrup. “What does it feel like? Being in love for real?”

Dean chokes on his coffee.

“Kiddo, I don’t think I’m the right person to ask about that at all.”

“I asked Cas. He said I should ask you or Sam. He said he doesn’t know what it feels like with a siren because the venom didn’t work, and he said he doesn’t know what it’s like for a human either. That angels feel things differently.”

Oh he did, did he? Dean’s looking forward to his future of obsessing about what _that_ means.

Also, Dean has no idea how to answer that loaded question. He sighs, pushing his plate away from him. He thinks about Cassie and Lee and Lisa and Cas; how they were all so uniquely complicated. “It’s exciting in the beginning; something just clicks into place with a person and you know they’re important. But then it’s about someone knowing you - like, _really_ knowing you, not getting in your head and fucking around in your memories and trying to be what you want. It’s them really seeing you, and wanting to be with you anyway. And you see them for who they are and want to be with them anyway. You’re safe with them, and you trust them to be there for you, you want to be there for them.”

“But different than family?”

“Part of family? But it’s a different kind of affection, a different kind of connection. Not more, necessarily, but different.” He sighs, dropping his head into his hands. “I don’t know how to explain this.”

“Don’t tell me I’ll get it when I’m older.”

“I don’t think it’s about being older. But. You’ll know it when you feel it?” He knows that’s weak. The first time Dean felt anything like romantic love it was with Robin, and he’d mostly wanted to smell her hair and never leave her side, and that was different than what came later, but real all the same.

Jack nods, thinking. “And you want to sleep with them.”

Dean sputters, and then takes in Jack smirking at him from across the table. “Yes, for a lot of people that’s...a big part of it. Can you please ask Sam for the sex talk if that’s the next step, because I can’t.” This is so much worse than Jack asking about dating that time with the cheerleader with the zombie boyfriend and Dean had thought that was pretty bad.

“I don’t need the sex talk,” Jack says. “I have the internet.”

“Nope, no, we’re done here. Don’t talk to me about the internet; I don’t want to know what you found,” Dean says, and he flees for more pancakes.

\---

Sam tags along when Dean ducks out for a beer run. They don’t really need beer; they probably need less beer than they have, actually, or at least Dean should probably be drinking less of it, but Dean has been going on supply runs and beer runs just to get out of the bunker and they’re overstocked on everything at this point. Bu you never know when an extra roll of toilet paper will come in handy.

Besides, the liquor store does fancy whiskey tastings on Thursdays and that’s as good a reason as any.

Sam’s a little twitchy in the passenger seat; he opens his mouth likes he’s going to say something and then closes it again. Keeps checking his phone.

“What’s got you all antsy?” Dean finally asks. “Spit it out.”

Sam clears his throat. “Eileen ran into some trouble on a haunting case out in Virginia. I’m going to head out that way tomorrow to help her out.”

Dean doesn’t remember anything about a haunting in Virginia, but it may not have been one that originated with Sam. Eileen’s been working as much as she can, trying to keep busy. 

(“She just wants to _do_ something,” Sam had said, when Dean had asked him about it. “She feels like she’s a liability when she’s here with us. She doesn’t want to be used against us again. Chuck got too far in her head. But she feels like working is how she can help.”)

“Just a haunting? You need more backup?”

Sam shakes his head. “No, it’s just…”

“If you say ‘just a simple salt and burn,’ I swear…”

“It’s not like that. It’s a tricky case; she burned one body, but it hasn’t stopped. There’s more than one spirit, and it’s an old town with a lot of Revolutionary War history. She just needs another set of eyes on things.”

“Definitely ghosts, though?”

“Yes. Ectoplasm everywhere. Apparitions all over the place. EMF off the charts. No djinn or sirens or mindfuck monsters, I promise.”

Okay, Sam has always been pretty good at identifying Dean’s anxieties.

“We can still go with you. Five heads are better than one, or whatever.” Maybe a break will help them all clear out their heads - even if that thinking is how they ended up with the siren debacle to begin with. But ghosts - should be - mostly safe, comparatively.

“No, it's okay. We’ll be fine.” Sam hesitates, and then - “I am going to take Jack, though. But you need to stay here, so that Cas will stay here.”

“ _What_? Why?”

“He’s a little overprotective right now. Jack’s feeling a little...I don’t want to say smothered, but maybe a little confined.”

“Did he say that?”

“Not in those words. But look, that last case was a blow, I know. For him, and for all of us.” Dean knows that’s less true for Sam than for the rest of them, but Sam gets points for tact. “He needs a little space and to get his confidence back. He needs to feel like we trust him to handle himself.”

“Do we?” Dean asks, and he’s being sarcastic, but also honest. Angel hearts aside and all the best intentions, Jack’s still a wild card. May always be a bit of a wild card.

“I’ll be there the entire time, Dean. I can keep an eye on him. But we have to give a little bit of room to help, and to feel like he’s part of this team, not just someone we have to protect.” 

“Cas is just worried.” Dean doesn’t know why he’s getting defensive.

“I know. I am too. And Cas did learn to hover overprotectively from the best - “

“Hey.”

Sam smirks at him. “I’m just saying. I’ve been on the receiving end of that kind of worry, and it can be a lot. I know there are things we need to figure out, but let me do this. Let him do this. Eileen, Jack, and I can handle a couple of ghosts.”

Dean sighs. “Fine, but you’re telling Cas.”

Sam holds up his hands in surrender, gracious in his overall victory.

After that, Sam puts a moratorium on shop talk for the rest of the afternoon. The liquor store is sampling whiskey from Union Horse Distilling. They try all of the samples, and buy a bottle of rye. They get burgers to soak up the whiskey before they drive home. It’s a good afternoon. It’s been too long since he’d really just spent time with Sam like this, easy and companionable. They all probably could use some more breaks to offset the constant backdrop of apocalypse-induced anxiety. After all, if the word is ending they should probably think about how they want to spend their time.

\---

As predicted, Cas does not love the idea of Jack going off to hunt ghosts with Sam and Eileen, but he also clearly doesn’t want to be too visibly against it for fear of insinuating he doesn’t trust Sam to take care of Jack. He eyes Dean suspiciously when they tell him the plan, but Dean shrugs and shakes his head, trying to use wide eyes and a neutral expression to indicate his innocence.

Jack clearly does love the idea of getting out of the bunker and getting a chance to do something other than _wait_ , and that palpable excitement is enough for Cas to relax enough and let it go.

And then Dean and Cas are alone in the bunker for an unknown length of time, which Dean probably should have given more thought to before agreeing to this.

\---  
So, Dean and Cas have kind of been in a weird place since Purgatory.

They’re not in a _bad_ place. They’ve been in-sync with each other; the old warmth and trust is back. Cas proved that when he brought Jack straight to them after Jack showed up again and Dean, despite some reservations and the still throbbing ache of grief over Mary, has done everything he can to prove that trust is justified and reciprocated, for both Cas’ sake and Jack’s.

But there’s still a tension between them, more now, that the siren came along to raise more questions. They’ve had things unsaid between them for years, maybe from the beginning; that’s not new. But Dean feels like something is _started_ now. There’s a conversation abandoned half-way through, an unanswered question hanging in the air, and it leaves him with this unsettled feeling, even when Cas is smiling at him warmly across the table or squeezing his shoulder as he brushes by. Dean put about half his cards on the table in Purgatory, but there are a few more to play. Cas’ cards are already out there, probably, but they’ve never made complete sense. Dean’s never been totally sure they’re playing the same game, and it leaves him on edge; a constant state of waiting for something he can’t quite bring himself to name.

\---

They get through about two days of business as usual. That is, they get through two days of finding bupkis, before Dean declares that if Sam and Jack get a break, so do they.

“I don’t know. Is a haunting really a break, Dean?” Cas asks, and yes. Yes, it is. 

Cas has relaxed a bit, since Sam has been true to his word and is keeping them updated at regular intervals. 

(They’re staying at a nicer hotel than usual because Eileen wanted to. There’s this fancy coffee shop that has a tasting room - why would a coffee shop have a tasting room, Dean doesn’t ask - and Jack loves it. They burned another body and there are still apparitions, which means at least three ghosts. Jack is doing great. Seeing Eilleen is great. Sam is really, really happy to be there with her. Sam doesn’t say that last one, but Dean can tell. He may tell them to take another few days after the case wraps up. Stick Jack in a separate room for a night or two. Let him play tourist for awhile and explore Revolutionary War history and fancy coffee shops while Sam and Eileen catch up.)

That night Dean decides it’s movie night. They’ve done sci-fi. They’ve done cowboys. They have not done slasher flicks from the 70’s and 80’s. Dean has fallen down on his pop culture education job. Luckily, Dean picked up a bunch at sale at the used CD/DVD/bookstore in town awhile back. Cas narrows his eyes, studying the back cover of _Friday the 13th_.

“I do know about all of these movies, Dean.”

“I know. They were part of Metraton’s brain dump, but knowing is not the same thing as seeing.”

“ I don’t really get what’s entertaining about watching serial killers slice up teenagers.”

“Okay, one, you should ask Sam what’s entertaining about serial killers sometime because he loves that topic, and two, these movies are a cultural touchstone. It’s important. ”

“Okay, but don’t you fight enough monsters?”

“Sure, but these aren’t real monsters. And you know they’ll die at the end.”

Cas holds up _Friday the 13th_ parts two and three. “And then they come back.”

“And then they die again. It’s a thing. Trust me.”

“Mhmmm,” Cas says, unconvinced, but he settles down in the other armchair next to Dean as Dean presses play. Cas is still in the suit coat, but he’s shed the trenchcoat and he’s leaning in, stealing Dean’s popcorn, the way he does every time they do this, not because he likes the taste, but because it’s “part of the experience.”

They haven’t done this since...well, since before everything went really bad. The last time, they’d had Mary and Jack here with them. Dean swallows hard and takes a sip of his beer, blinking against the sudden sharp pressure in his eyes. They are _taking a break_ , and he’s not thinking about that tonight.

Cas seems to sense the change in his demeanor, though, and shifts toward him, touching Dean on his forearm, just below where his sleeve is rolled to the elbow. Cas’ hand is hot on his skin.

“Are you okay?”

Dean clears his throat. “I’m fine. Watch the movie.”

Cas may not believe him, but he lets it go. He withdraws his hand, but not far. If they were on a couch and not these chairs with inconvenient arms, Dean is pretty sure they’d be pressed up together, thighs and shoulders touching.

They get through two movies, and Cas is engaged, at least enough to spend most of the movie questioning the judgement of every character on the screen, but his phone is on his other side, and he’s checking it periodically.

(“It’s a slasher flick, Cas. There are tropes.”

“I know that, but why would anyone go _upstairs_ in this situation?”

“You just have to roll with it.”)

They’re about to start the third one, when Cas goes for his phone again and Dean reaches over him to snatch it off the arm of his chair.

“Jack is _fine_ , Cas. Hunting ghosts. Exploring battlefields. Playing third wheel to Sam and Eileen. He’s having fun. I think Sam’s the fun dad. I don’t know how to feel about that or how it happened, but I think that’s where we are.”

He flushes when he catches what he said, but Cas just rolls his eyes. “You let him drive the impala, Dean. I think you’re the fun dad.” He pauses and purses his lips. “Also, I think we may have a skewed definition of fun.” 

Dean looks down and clears his throat. “Yeah, well, it’s okay if you have fun too and don’t worry so much about him for a night.”

“I always worry.”

“I know. I do too.”

“But I do know you’re right. After everything, that last case, not being able to protect him, it was harder than I thought it would be. I keep feeling like I should have known somehow. Like I missed something big.”

Dean fiddles with Cas’ phone. “We all missed it. And maybe we shouldn’t have been thinking more outside the box, but we all expected it to go after me next. We all thought it was Alexis. How could you have known?”

“I know. It was logical. How could we have known the siren wouldn’t find it worthwhile to go after you?”

Dean freezes, goes cold, then hot as the implications of that settle in. “You heard that?” 

Cas glances at him sideways, wide-eyed and caught, and then gestures to himself, chagrined. “Celestial being. Super hearing. We _have_ been through this.”

Dean stares at him. Of course. This is everything he’s been both afraid of and waiting for, with nowhere to hide. “Okay...”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“Why not?” He forces himself to ask.

“I didn’t think you’d want me to. You’ve never wanted to talk about it before.” And that’s, well. How long has Cas _known_? “And I know we have bigger things to worry about.” Dean knows that’s true, but in this moment, he doesn’t feel like it is. “And now, you’ve been so uncertain of everything,” Cas continues. “What any of it means. What’s real, what’s Chuck, where it all comes from. Do you still think Chuck had something to do with the siren case?” 

“I don’t know. It’s hard not to second guess everything. I feel paranoid, but I’m just so tired of cosmic influence.” 

Cas smiles, wry and not really amused. “I’ve been tired of that for a very, _very_ long time.”

Dean takes a deep breath, and then a plunge. “What did you mean when you told Jack angels feel love differently?” 

Cas sits forward on the chair, looking at the wall. “Our lives are long. We see...so much. Being human myself, even briefly, made my emotions sharper, I think it made me understand better, but it didn’t change that. That time span has different implications.”

That does not sound good. And Dean still can’t bring himself to just ask, _do you love me_. He knows Cas does, but not what that _means_ in practical terms. What the hell, “implications.”

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. I’m tired. I’m drunk. I’m going to bed.” Then they can either pretend this didn’t happen or Dean can at least deal with it when he’s not so many beers in.

“Dean,” Cas starts, but Dean waves him off and heads for his room, the DVD credits still playing.

\---

He doesn’t sleep. He should have known better than to try. He also doesn’t leave his room until around noon, and when he does, Cas is nowhere to be found, which means he doesn’t really want to be found, but they’re in a good place, last night notwithstanding. Cas would tell him if he was taking off. 

And Dean had time to sober up, and time to think, and time to decide that they can’t go on like this. They need an answer, whatever that answer is. Also, sobriety was not a good call, and liquid courage never hurt anyone, so he gets the whiskey, takes a shot, and goes to find Cas.

After everything went bad, but before it went nuclear, when Dean was spiraling, Cas looked at him and said, “we are real.” Dean still doesn’t quite know what that means or which way is up, or how much of their heads and histories have been fucked with, but there are things that he can choose. He can choose what he believes in. He can choose how to react.

He knocks on the door of Cas’ room. Or, more accurately, he knocks on the door of the guest room that he once offered arbitrarily when Cas was human before the Gadreel mess and that Cas now uses on the rare occasion he wants to put a door that locks between himself and the other occupants of the bunker rather than spending his nights haunting the library. Dean usually respects that and doesn’t seek Cas out there. He doesn’t like being in there anyway much; all these years and it still feels too transitory and impersonal; it makes him anxious.

Of course, he also doesn’t actually ever put guests in it.

Cas answers the door in his shirtsleeves with his tie loose and Dean nearly chokes. He has _got_ to get used to that.

Cas stares at Dean and the whiskey and rocks glasses he’s balancing and then just shrugs and gestures him into the room. Dean comes to a dead stop in the middle of the room and sits down hard on the chair next to the bed, dropping the whiskey bottle on the bedside table with a sharp clang, and trying to remember the last time he was actually in this room.

It’s...different. There’s a soft knitted blanket on the bed in a deep forest green. There are stacks of books on the desk - research books from the library, yes, but also a tattered copy of Slaughterhouse Five and a hardback copy of the full works of Shakespeare - where did that even come from? There’s a picture of Claire on the shelf on the wall, and one of Cas and Jack together that Sam took and Jack used to have in his room. Cas must have had a copy made at some point. And there’s the mixtape, on the shelf next to the photographs. Dean inhales sharply through the sudden surge of emotion.

He pours two glasses of whiskey. When he looks up, Cas is eyeing him warily, but he reaches out and takes one of the glasses, easing down onto the side of the bed facing Dean. He’s not making any sudden movements, like he’s afraid Dean will startle. It’s a little insulting. It’s also fair.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” Dean finally gets out.

“You’ve always told me I should make it more my own.”

“Yeah. I’m glad you did. This is your home too, Cas. We,” he pauses, corrects himself, “ _I_ want you here.” 

“Thank you, Dean. I want to be here. I want…” he trails off, thinking, and Dean loses his composure.

“ _What_ do you want, Cas?” he says, and he doesn’t mean for it to come out desperate, but Cas just stares.

“You don’t know, do you?” He asks, sounding fully stunned. “You actually don’t know.”

And Dean does know, of course he does. He’s not stupid, or oblivious. He knows this is important. He knows what Cas has sacrificed - given up for them - for _him_. But he also doesn’t know. When Cas says, “ _He_ kissed _me_ ” or “you mean too much to me” or “I’d rather be here” or “angels feel things differently” or “I love you” while he’s bleeding out on a barn floor, Dean doesn’t know _what that means_. What does that look like, five years from now, ten years from now. If they survive all of this, what does it mean for Cas to love him, for them to love each other? He’s been terrified of that question for a long time, but he thinks he’s finally more scared of not answering it.

Dean loves the bunker, but sometimes he’d give anything for a window to stare out of, for something to look at besides the walls, or Cas, or this room Cas has somehow, at some point turned into something comfortable and homey. Fuck it, they’re doing this. He gets up and paces to one corner of the room and then whirls around to look at Cas. Cas is still sitting on the bed, watching him steadily with wide, questioning eyes.

“I’ve loved you for a quarter of my life,” Dean says, into the silence, and tries not to flinch, saying that out loud for the first time. “You’ve known me for the cosmic equivalent of less than five minutes. That can’t carry the same weight. I’m not doubting you. I’m not questioning that you want to be here. I’m not questioning that we matter to you, that you,” he swallows, “love us, but...”

“You, Dean,” Cas interrupts.

“What?”

“I love _you_. I love Sam and Jack too, of course. And Claire, and others, but can we please just talk about what we’re actually talking about?”

Out of words, Dean just nods.

Cas says, “Okay. I’m thinking of how to explain it to you so you’ll stop being stupid.” He pauses, choosing his words, and Dean waits, heart racing. “Some angels, for a long time, saw humans as a trap. And you were, in a way. We were supposed to love you, but distantly. We were supposed to see the beauty of humanity, but not...individuals for the most part. That wasn’t always how it went. It was hard not to be curious. Some angels spent more time than they should with humans. Some formed friendships. Some more. It was forbidden, of course, but,” Cas smirks, raising an eyebrow, “you don’t have to forbid things no one wants to do. You met Ishim. And you knew Gabriel.”

“Yeah,” Dean croaks out. That’s fair. Ishim was an asshole who was pretty much destroyed by his obsession with Lily Sunder. Gabriel was just a horny bastard.

Cas continues, “It was different, for me. Though I’ve always been rebellious in some ways, and I was interested in and curious about humanity, I was never really tempted to get too close… “ He trails off. “One of my brothers once described humanity as our fruit in the garden. I didn’t understand what he meant. And then I met you.”

Dean draws in a shuddering breath, light-headed and stunned. He doesn’t know how to resond t that, so what comes out is, “Did you just compare me to original sin?”

Cas stands up from the bed and advances toward him until Dean finds himself backed up against the wall. There’s still space between them, but Dean can feel the heat of Cas’ body, can feel the thud of his own heart in his chest.

“Yes, but it’s a clumsy analogy,” Cas says. He’s touching Dean now, fingertips light on his wrist, trailing up his forearm. Dean closes his eyes against it and breathes. “Really, I compared knowing you to revelation. To seeing and understanding the full complexity and beauty of the world for the first time. To being able to _choose_ and knowing what that means. When I say angels feel differently, I mean nothing in a millenia has compared to the friendships I’ve formed in the last ten years on earth, and I have never felt about anyone or anything the way I feel about you. I’m not afraid I feel less than you do. I’m afraid I feel more.”

Mother _fucker_ if that’s not the most romantic thing Dean has ever heard in his life. It should probably be terrifying. The fact that Dean is still actually kind of convinced that there’s no way Cas loves him more than he loves Cas is evidence of just how far gone he is.

It’s also so much more than Dean deserves or can even quite process in this moment. He was so unprepared for this. He knew that, but he figured he was unprepared in the other direction. Dean opens his eyes and they just stare at each other, stunned, both breathing hard.

“Holy shit,” Dean says. “You can’t just say things like that, Jesus Christ.”

“I just did,” Cas says, and kisses him. 

It’s hesitant at first, Cas giving Dean a chance to set the pace, but when Dean shudders against him, pulling Cas in by the waist to deepen the kiss, Cas presses closer, dragging his hand up Dean’s wrist to cup his jaw, and tangling their fingers together with his other hand. It’s eager, but still soft, so gentle, in a way Dean really isn’t expecting. He always figured if this ever happened, then years of pent up frustration would take over, but it’s tender, _reverent_ , and Dean feels like he’s going to shake out of his skin.

He breaks the kiss to tip his forehead against Cas’ and says, “I love you,” because he has to follow Cas’ confession up with something, even if it’s weak in comparison. He may not have the poetry or the words, but he has just as much devotion to back it up.

Cas kisses the hinge of his jaw and leans in, so that Dean is fully up against the wall, held there by the weight of Cas’ body. “I love you in every way I understand the word,” Cas says, low in his ear, “and I want you in every way I understand the word, if that addresses your earlier concerns.”

Dean pushes forward, kissing him again, deep and slow. Cas lets himself be moved backward, and then spins them around so he can walk Dean back until the back of his knees are against the bed and then they’re tumbling down onto it. Dean’s on his back, Cas still holding one hand up above his head with his other on Dean’s face, jaw, throat. Dean breaks the kiss to turn his head and press his lips to Cas’ palm, and then get his other hand under Cas shirt, the skin of Cas’ back hot against his fingers, and pulls down to get rid of every inch of space between them. 

Cas catches his mouth again, still without too much of a sense of urgency, like he’s determined to take his time with this, after all this time. Cas kisses like he does everything - with conviction and intensity - and Dean doesn’t know what he expected, but he’s pretty sure he’s about to be meticulously taken apart and put back together.

He wrests his hands free so he can pull at Cas’ tie and the buttons of his shirt. Cas finally stops kissing him long enough to shrug out of his dress shirt and tug at the hem of Dean’s henley, pulling it up over his head. Cas steps off the bed long enough to tug off his dress pants and underwear. Dean wants to watch that, but he doesn’t have time to look his fill; he barely has time to struggle out of his jeans before Cas is back on him and they’re kissing again. Dean moves up against the pillows at the head of the bed, pulling Cas after him until Cas is draped over him, holding him close, holding him down and secure. His hands are everywhere, cupping Dean’s face and throwing sparks where he trails his fingers up Dean’s side. 

They kiss for what could be minutes, what could be hours. It’s a slow, slow build, every touch almost _worshipful_ , and Dean knows he’s trembling with it, shaking with every press of Cas’ hands against his skin. He’s pretty sure they’re both going to get off just like this, touching each other everywhere, Cas’ bare skin burning under his palms. And that’s exactly what he wants in this moment; they have time to get fancy later - they have _time_ , and isn’t that surprising - but right now he just wants Cas against his lips and under his hands, moving relentlessly between his thighs.

Dean comes first, gasping into the hollow of Cas’ throat. Then he gets one hand between them and it doesn’t take much before Cas is shaking against him. 

Dean gets a washcloth to clean them both up, and then crawls back into the bed still naked. Cas pulls him against his chest.

They lie there for a moment in the silence, and then Dean says, “I meant it. So there’s never any confusion, I need you to hear me - I want you here.”

Cas seems pensive, rubbing one hand up and down Dean’s arm, soothing. It’s a long moment before he says, quietly, “I promise you, as long as I have a choice, that’s what I want too.”

And that has to be good enough, doesn’t it? All any of them have control over are the things they can choose.

Dean’s not sure how to be satisfied with that. Chuck is still out there; Dean still has the drumbeat of uncertainty pounding in his brain. But it’s a moment stolen from the chaos, and one more thing to fight all the harder for.

And they’re alone in the bunker for an unknown amount of time. He pushes up on one elbow, leaning down over Cas because it’s barely early afternoon; the day stretches out before them, and they have plenty of time for the fancy stuff. Cas leans up for a kiss, and they’re off again.

**Author's Note:**

> No one sleeps with a siren, but Cas and Jack both kiss one. Jack gets infected with the siren venom and is pretty messed up about it after.


End file.
